Richard L. Tierney
American | period = | genre = poetry, fantasy, horror }} Richard L. Tierney (born August 7, 1936) is an American poet, story writer, and scholar of H.P. Lovecraft. He is the co-author (with David C. Smith) of a series of Red Sonja novels. Some of his standalone novels utilize the mythology of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. Life Youth and education Tierney was born in Spencer, Iowa. In the summer of 1942 his family moved to Mason City, where he went through the public school system until completing high school. Tierney read 2 of H.P. Lovecraft's stories (The Rats in the Walls and The Dunwich Horror) in the anthology Great Tales of Horror and the Supernatural edited by Wise and Frazer (1949) at the age of 11, but was not especially impressed by them since there were no conventional ghosts in the stories. A few years later, aged 15, he read Lovecraft's The Shadow Out of Time in Donald A. Wollheim's Viking Portable Novels of Science and was hooked. At around the same age (15 or 16), he was inspired to write poetry by August Derleth's fantasy verse anthology Dark of the Moon: Poems of fantasy and the Macabre which he read several times in the Mason City Public Library. While he had been a devotee of the poems of Edgar Allan Poe before that, he was inspired by the H.P. Lovecraft poems in the anthology (particularly the "Fungi from Yuggoth"), and also the poems by Donald Wandrei, Robert E. Howard, Frank Belknap Long, and others. Tierney's debut novel, The Winds of Zarr, which combined H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, time travel and ancient astronauts, and is set in Egypt during the New Kingdom, was penned in 1959 when Tierney was aged 17, but did not see print until 1975. Tierney graduated from Iowa State College in Ames, Iowa, in 1961 with a bachelor's degree in entomology Early career - 1960's and 1970's Poetry and Lovecraft studies Tierney worked for many years (1958–71) for the U.S. Forest Service in several western states and Alaska. Tierney has written widely on a variety of esoteric topics, such as the legends concerning Mount Shasta and Amne Machin. Well versed in Meso-American archaeology, during his time working for the Forest Service he spent 4 winters (1962-1966) in Mexico and Central and South America visiting ancient Amerind ruins, photographing many of the most remote mountain and jungle sites - a background he uses in his later Cthulhu Mythos novel, The House of the Toad (1993). August Derleth published some of Tierney's weird sonnets in The Arkham Collector, and Tierney also began to submit verse to fantasy/horror markets such as Nyctalops. This ultimately led to the publication of his Collected Poems (Arkham House, 1981) (see below). Tierney lived in the San Francisco Bay area in the late 1960s and early 1970s and was good friends with the pulp writer E. Hoffman Price with whom he corresponded extensively. Later in the 1970s he lived for nearly nine years in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis -- St Paul), which brought him in frequent contact with horror/fantasy writers such as Carl Jacobi and Donald Wandrei. In 1972, Tierney moved to Minneapolis to take up writing as a vocation. He made his mark in Lovecraft studies at this time by authoring the essay "The Derleth Mythos", first published in 1972 in Meade and Penny Frierson's HPL (Birmingham, Al: The Editors, 1972, 1975) and reprinted in 1976 in Darrell Schweitzer's Essays Lovecraftian (Baltimore, MD: TK Graphics). The essay famously separates the ideas of Lovecraft from the later elaborations by August Derleth. Essentially, Tierney argues (correctly) that Lovecraft's cosmic outlook in his fiction was not intended to convey a "good vs evil" approach. Thus Derleth's version of the Cthulhu Mythos, which promotes the "good vs evil" concept, is untrue to Lovecraft's fictional philosophies. Robert E. Howard completions Tierney has completed several story fragments left by Robert E. Howard. In the seventies Tierney edited 2 volumes of Howard's works for publisher Donald M. Grant -- Tigers of the Sea(1973) and Hawks of Outremer (1979). In Tigers of the Sea the title story and The Temple of Abomination are posthumous collaborations of Tierney with Howard. In Hawks of Outremer, the story The Slave Princess is the sole posthumous collaboration by Tierney with Howard. In 1975, Silver Scarab press published Tierney's early novel, The Winds of Zarr'. In the late 1970s, Tierney was contacted by editor Philip Rahman (publisher of the Fedogan and Bremer line) who had read Tierney's tale "From Beyond the Stars" in Kirby McCauley's anthology Night Chills (1975), which takes place in NE Iowa. The two became friends and eventually he published Tierney's Cthulhu Mythos novel The House of the Toad (1993). Philip's brother, Glenn Rahman, urged Tierney to collaborate with him on The Gardens of Lucullus which eventually appeared in 2001. Later career - 1980's to 21st century In 1981, he returned to Mason City to take care of his mother, Margaret, now deceased. The same year Arkham House published his volume of weird verse, Collected Poems: Nightmares and visions, a volume which critic S.T. Joshi has said "established Tierney as one of the leading weird poets of his generation." Joshi has commented that some of the poems feature the misanthropic bitterness of Ambrose Bierce.. Red Sonja series For Ace Books, with his frequent collaborator David C. Smith, Tierney co-authored a series of seven novels loosely based on a Robert E. Howard character Red Sonja (a female super-heroine warring against the Turks in 17th century Eastern Europe). Red Sonja's character was loosely based on Red Sonya (note different spelling) of Rogatino in Robert E. Howard's short story "The Shadow of the Vulture" (The Magic Carpe''t, January 1934), which Roy Thomas rewrote as a Conan story for Marvel Comics Conan the Barbarian #23 (1973). Thomas also somewhat based Red Sonja on another Howard character, Dark Agnes de Chastillon, a sword woman in 16th-century France. For the Red Sonja series, Tierney and Smith were paid $1,000 per book and set the stories in the Hyborian Age, 15,000 years ago. Ace Books published the series in the early 1980s. Simon Magus/Simon of Gitta series A long-running series of stories (begun in the mid-1980s) by Tierney featuring Simon of Gitta, a character based on the Gnostic heresiarch Simon Magus, is collected in ''The Scroll of Thoth (1997). The Biblical figure of Simon Magus is a great figure in the Western mystery tradition. A meticulous researcher, Tierney studied the Roman era and Gnosticism for this series featuring the magician-warrior. Simon of Gitta also features in Tierney's novels The Gardens of Lucullus (with Glenn Rahman) and The Drums of Chaos. Simon is a Samaritan ex-gladiator whose sorcerous abilities allow him to survive encounters with an array of evil priests, emperors and hideous creatures. His quest for his true love Helen drives Simon and plays an instrumental part in the tales. Some of the stories pay tribute to H.P. Lovecraft, while a story such as "The Blade of the Slayer" is a tribute to Karl Edward Wagner's tales of the swordsman Kane.Magus meets up with Shub-Niggurath (the evil goddess), searches for the Ring of Set, and has several other dark adventures. The Drums of Chaos (2008) is the author's magnum opus: an epic alternate history dark fantasy Cthulhu Mythos novel featuring Tierney's best-known characters, Simon of Gitta and John Taggart. Set in the Holy Land during the time of the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, Simon of Gitta is on mission to avenge the deaths of his parents, seeking revenge in blood against the Roman officials who committed the murders. As he travels the Holy Lands with his mentor Dositheus, and their student Menander, they become entangled in a complex plot designed to call down a monstrous alien entity to herald a new aeon on Earth. John Taggart, the time traveler from Tierney's The Winds of Zarr becomes involved with Simon of Gitta, as their separate quests converge toward a common goal of saving the very Earth. Recent work Tierney has continued to publish weird verse, with the volume Savage Menace, and other poems of horror (2010), which collects all of his verse subsequent to Collected Poems. He has recently collaborated on verse with poets including Charles Lovecraft and Leigh Blackmore. Tierney is a member of the Unitarians. He finds writing a chore but is sometimes inspired by listening to classical music or film scores. Recognition Tierney was nominated for the Science Fiction Poetry Association's Grandmaster Award for 2010.March 2010, 2010 News Archive, Science Fiction Poetry Association. Web, Mar. 24, 2015. Publications Poetry *''Dreams and Damnations: Poems''. Madison, WI: The Strange Co., 1981. *''Collected Poems: Nightmares and visions''. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1981. * The Blob That Gobbled Abdul, and other poems and songs (introduction by Ramsey Campbell). Mason City, IA: Sidecar Preservation Society, 2000. *''Savage Menace, and other poems of horror'' (preface by S.T. Joshi; illustrated by Andrew J. McKiernan). Sydney: P'rea Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-9804625-5-5. Novels *''The Winds of Zarr''. Albuquerque, NM: Silver Scarab Press, 1975. *''For The Witch Of The Mists'' (with David C. Smith). New York: Kensington / Zebra, 1978; New York: Ace, 1981. *''Hawks of Outremar'' (with Robert E. Howard). West Kingston, RI: Donald M. Grant, 1979. *''The House of the Toad''. Minneapolis, MN: Fedogan and Bremer, 1993. Red Sonja series (with David C. Smith) #''The Ring of Ikribu''. New York: Ace, 1981. #''Demon Night''. New York: Ace, 1982. #''When Hell Laughs''. New York: Ace, 1982. #''Endithor's Daughter''. New York: Ace, 1982. #''Against the Prince of Hell''. New York: Ace, 1983. #''Star of Doom''. New York: Ace, 1983. Simon of Gitta series * Scroll of Thoth: Simon Magus and the great old ones (collects all 12 Simon Magus stories solely written by Tierney). Oakland, CA: Chaosium, 1997. Not included in this collection are: *''The Gardens of Lucullus'' (with Glenn Rahman). Thielman, MN: Sidecar Preservation Society, 2001. * The Drums of Chaos. Poplar Bluff, MO: Mythos Books, 2008. Short fiction * Tigers Of The Sea (with Robert E. Howard). West Kingston, RI: Donald M. Brant, 1974. *''Unextpected Encounters: Four stories''. London: Robinson, 2012. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Richard L. Tierney, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Mar. 25, 2015. See also *List of U.S. poets References *Eng, Steve. "Richard L. Tierney: Arcane Sonneteer" (as part of "Three Poets of Horror: Tierney, Brieding and Brennan", in Darrell Schweitzer, ed. Discovering Modern Horror Fiction II. Mercer Island, WA: Starmont House, 1988. * Joshi, S. T. (2008). Tierney is discussed in “Some Contemporaries” chapter 7 in Emperors of Dreams: Some Notes on Weird Poetry. Sydney: P’rea Press. ISBN 978-0-9804625-3-1 (pbk) and ISBN 978-0-9804625-4-8 (hbk). * * Notes External links ;Poems *Harag-Kolath" ;Prose *"The Derleth Mythos" ;Books *Richard L. Tierney at Amazon.com *Richard Tierney at Fantastic Fiction * ;About *Robert M. Price, An Interview with Richard L. Tierney, 1984 * *[http://www.horrorscope.com.au/2010/03/review-savage-menace-and-other-poems-of.html review of Savage Menace, and other poems of horror] Category:1936 births Category:American poets Category:American fantasy writers Category:American horror writers Category:Living people Category:Cthulhu Mythos writers Category:20th-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets